


this life that we've created, (inundated with the fated thought of you)

by teamfreehoodies



Category: The Witcher (TV)
Genre: Attempted Kidnapping, Competent Jaskier | Dandelion, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Emotionally Constipated Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, Episode Fix-It: s01e06 Rare Species, Fix-It of Sorts, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia is Bad at Apologies, Hurt Jaskier | Dandelion, Jaskier Gets Stabbed!, M/M, Miscommunication, Mountain Reunion, No beta: we die as if struck down by apoplexy, On god they are going to talk about their feelings, Pre-Relationship, Reconciliation, but not graphically
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-22
Updated: 2020-06-13
Packaged: 2021-03-02 22:09:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 10,423
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24324079
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/teamfreehoodies/pseuds/teamfreehoodies
Summary: Gods, but this is very nearly intolerable. He’d been ready to forgive him, even then, waiting for Geralt to take it back, for him to turn around and apologize; and he’d been ready to forgive him two years ago, if only Geralt’s path would cross his again, one year ago, traveling slowly from town to town, chasing whispers of the white wolf in between his bardic circuit. He does not know if his heart can take it again, if Geralt once more decides him too much of a burden to bear traveling with. Injured, now, needing to be saved, he could not have engineered a worse reunion had he written the fates himself.
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion
Comments: 39
Kudos: 439





	1. this is a language only we know

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Fair by The Amazing Devil- I'm joining the ranks of other feral Joey Batey fans and I'm very excited about it.
> 
> I will say this is based on the Netflix show, and picks up after season one ends. I'm playing fast and loose with the timeline here, and weirdly being incredibly pedantic about the geography. I spent entirely too long looking at maps is what I'm saying.
> 
> I've read the first two books, so their dialogue is based somewhat on the more formal way they talked there, but I tried to soften it to blend with the show!canon.

When they had been traveling together they didn’t always get the names of the villages they stopped in, and many of the backwater hamlets they found lodgings in for the night had no name for them to take regardless, whether they had time to ask the locals or not. Jaskier did scrupulously record the country they were in for any particular song however; he would have been remiss as an Oxenfurt scholar and Master of the Seven Liberal Arts if he did not at least have the sense to know when they crossed borders. It’s been three years since he actually worked on that song cycle, ended abruptly with “Her Sweet Kiss,” which he’d performed in public exactly once before retiring his entire repertoire of White Wolf Ballads, desperate to make sense of the absolute gutting loss of the last twenty-two years of his life—the narrative of his and Geralt’s travels no longer making sense to him under the crushing weight of the last words spoken to each other. He’d thought.... well. It didn’t matter what he thought. What matters now is the present, and the first sign of civilization they’ve seen since dawn, when Geralt crashed back into his life with nearly as much fanfare as he’d initially swanned out of it near three years ago now.

This particular town is somewhat south of The Blue Mountains, just past the border of where Lyria ends entirely. If Jaskier had to guess he’d suppose this to be an old miner’s outpost turned village when the Blue Mountain mines stopped turning a profit for the local fiefdoms, but travel-worn and still injured, he’s not keen to try his hand at ferreting the information out of the locals. His shoulder aches, and even if he couldn’t feel the damp stickiness of where the bandage needs changing he would most certainly know to do it anyways— it’d been nearly a full-days ride to even reach this much civilization and it’s only by the grace of Melitle they managed to stumble into a healer’s shop. Geralt is quiet, and while that’s not unusual for him, it’s unsettling in the intensity of it, radiating off of him as it is. Jaskier shifts slightly by the hearth, where the healer has posted him for the moment. His skin prickles unpleasantly with the heat at his back and he feels pinned between Geralt’s iciness and the warmth of the fire. 

“How’s a bard like you wind up speared through like to spit on the fire then,” the healer asks as she returns from her back room, supplies finally gathered. 

“Ahh, it’s a riveting tale of heroics and noble deeds, madam, but it’s a rather long one, and requires the ending being seen to before I may tell it.” Jaskier replies, smiling to lessen the blow of not getting the good gossip. Bards are good for more than just a night’s entertainment in towns like this, and though Jaskier normally played the part of herald and news-bringer with aplomb, the blood-loss and general unpleasantness of being stabbed and then riding a full day without proper attention was starting to take its toll and a peculiar lassitude was coming over him. He hardly cared that Geralt was still looming in the doorway, watching the healer with that piercing golden gaze of his, which had sent many of the folks they encountered into their vapors before. Usually, Jaskier at least made the attempt to smooth over the feathers that Geralt ruffled just by his being a Witcher, but that had been before, and Jaskier had been soothing ruffles for nearly two decades, and across half the continent. He could take this one day off and not fear a return of Geralt’s much worse reputation as the Butcher, which had quite nearly been stomped out entirely by the tales of the White Wolf. 

“Well, you’ll be healed up in no time, bard. Though it looks grisly it’s not all that bad in truth.” She says as she ties the bandage off, bustling now with the other supplies she brought out. She tips over some herbs and other unidentifiables into a bowl and starts grinding them as she delivers her instructions. “I’m making a salve for you to apply twice a day now, lay it on but don’t rub it in, it needs to set on the surface for the most effect.” Jaskier resettles his doublet, wincing at the pull of the newly tightened bandages. “This ought to last you near a week then and after that just treat it gentle enough and you’ll be alright, master bard.” She tips her mixture into a tin and Geralt steps forward enough to take it from her, slipping the coins onto the table between them in exchange. The iciness has not melted but some of the tension ratcheting his shoulders together has relaxed and Geralt nods at the healer in thanks before extending a hand to pull Jaskier back to standing. 

“Thank you most kindly for your ministrations, healer. I’d offer the story to you now, but my companion and I must keep riding on; there are monsters left to slay after all.” He sketches a shallower than normal bow, for while it does good to charm those who would help a witcher, it still aches and he’s tired beyond measure at the moment. Truthfully, they likely aren’t going farther than the tavern on the edge of this town, but this is not a tale Jaskier wishes to tell and the less likely she is to track them down for it the better. He’s no slouch in telling when a woman has grasped a juicy bit of gossip, which never comes through these kinds of towns, and he’s witnessed firsthand the tenacity with which they track it down. Geralt makes the point moot, regardless, by dragging him backwards over the threshold. He hardly hears the healer’s own goodbye float out after them, as Geralt has already steered them back to Roach and the words themselves are lost on the wind.

“Alright you brute, unhand me, I can walk still,” he growls yanking his doublet down one handed and out of Geralt’s grasp. The Witcher grunts, adjusting Roach’s tack and then untying the reins. He slips them over her head, hooking them on the horn before he turns to face Jaskier, one hand still resting on Roach’s back in preparation of getting into the saddle. 

“We need to keep moving.” Geralt says, looking past Jaskier to check out the road they came in on, eyes tracking over the, (yes, Jaskier confirms, turning around to look himself,) absolute absence of any following force.

“I have been stabbed, dragged across half the damn continent, and abused by your witchery self quite enough for one day, Geralt. We are going to find an inn and possibly a bath and we are going to _sleep.”_ Jaskier nods decisively, to let Geralt know that he quite means this, and is not prepared to cede to Geralt’s paranoia on this issue. There is tacky blood tangled up in the hair on his chest, and it itches, and besides the itching the knowledge that it’s not his own is far more unsettling and must be dealt with before Jaskier loses it entirely. Almost being kidnapped by Nilfgaard aside; stabbing a man with his own dagger, ripped inelegantly out of Jaskier’s shoulder no less, is more taxing than the stabbing and the dragging and even being manhandled by Geralt had been, all put together.

He’s a _bard_ , for Lilit’s sake, not a soldier, or a sell-sword, or a damn witcher for that matter. He’s not normally covered in _viscera_ at the end of his day, is the main thing and he’d very much like to not be covered in it any longer. This is likely the last place to have a chance at a bath that is warm, and he does not relish trying to wash off in a freezing stream in the woods like Geralt would clearly prefer.

“Fine,” is all Geralt has to say in response, and then he places his hands on Jaskier’s hips and has him half picked up before Jaskier manages to beat him off.

“No! Unhand me, witcher, I can walk, I am not _infirm_!” he cries, beating ineffectually at Geralt’s forearms. It wouldn’t stop any determined witcher, and certainly didn’t stop him the first time, out on the road when Jaskier first didn’t want to suddenly be riding Roach, but mercifully here, Geralt relents, with naught but a short huff of air released through his nose, his lips pressed firmly into one severely unimpressed line as he lets Jaskier’s feet find the dirt-trodden road again. Geralt says no more, but neither does he get into Roach’s saddle himself. Instead, he pulls the reins back down and chooses to lead her, turning to walk down the road toward the rest of the town and, hopefully, an inn. Jaskier follows, mollified by the silent acquiescence and dreaming already of the warm bath awaiting him.

He lets Geralt guide them to the town’s only inn, which, absent of signage, remains as unnamed as Jaskier predicted when they first stumbled onto this tract of land. Jaskier lets the pain and exhaustion gray out his awareness as Geralt arranges for a room and a bath to be brought up. He doesn’t check back in as it were until Geralt is trying to help him out of his ruined and blood-stained doublet.

“Oh, this was my favorite.” He says mournfully, as Geralt shakes his arms out of the sleeves. Perhaps he shouldn’t let Geralt manhandle him like this, but he is weak, and tired, and more than a little woozy by now. If taking this much comfort from the warm hands moving him about is a sin, then he is a sinner, and it is not the worst of his transgressions in this particular relationship. Geralt lets the doublet fall to the bed behind Jaskier and then starts pulling his chemise off as well. This too, Jaskier lets happen. The sudden shock of cold air against his skin is bracing, but he hardly has time to adjust before Geralt is standing him up, hands going for his breeches, and really, a line has to be drawn somewhere. “Geralt! Hold on, I can do it” he grumbles, smacking Geralt’s questing hands away to angrily unlace his trousers himself. He makes Geralt turn around while he climbs into the tub, and can’t help the shaky moan as he lowers his aching body into the water. Gods, but this is what he’s needed. The water is already loosening the dried blood from his skin, and he takes the small cloth from the side and starts scrubbing to chafe off the rest from his chest and side. Geralt has busied himself with putting away their gear and cleaning his swords in the corner, and so, for the first time since the attack, Jaskier finds he has nothing to stop his mind from wandering.

_He’s riding high on his most recent win, whiling away the hours amongst his fellow musicians getting drunk and losing money at Gwent when the first stirrings of trouble hit Toussaint. A whisper, started on the southern-most edge, zipping from mouth to mouth as it makes its way to Beauclair. The armies are marching. They are too far into their cups that night to take heed, and what have they to fear? Toussaint already belongs to Nilfgaard, if only in deed and tithings. They play the night away, and wake the next morning to soldiers in the streets, criers proclaiming the White Flame’s brilliance and their vision for the Continent. Jaskier gathers his things and flees with the troubadours, sneaking away in the commotion as buildings are searched and ransacked behind them. It’s a harrowing four days before he is separated from the contingent of new refugees he’s been traveling with._

_They’ve just been through the Cervantessa Pass, headed for Riedburne in Sodden, but Jaskier, following some churning deep in his gut, cuts north instead, intending to follow the Angra River until it meets the Yaruga. The last he had heard of Little Eye, she’d taken up in a Lyrian court and it would do well to warn her, maybe take her back to Oxenfurt, safely in the Northern Kingdoms protection. It’s hard camping with so few supplies, having not had time nor preparation enough for this journey, but he’s suffered worse during his travels with Geralt, and the perpetual fear keeps him moving._

_It’s at the junction of the Angra and the Solveiga when he’s attacked, clearly an advanced party of Nilfgaardian scouts intending to lead their men through Lyria. He comes upon them with enough warning that he can hide, attempting to pass unseen by cutting through the densely-wooded forest. He’s just passed far enough into the tree-line that he can no longer hear the men chatting around the fire when he, quite literally, trips over a soldier out to piss._

_The soldier had propped his sheathed sword against a tree, and it’s this that trips Jaskier; he goes sprawling over the tree roots and lands at the surprised soldier’s feet. Credit where credit is due, the shock of having a bard fall into his lap doesn’t put him off his game, and the man has a dagger in his hand and poised to strike by the time Jaskier has gotten to his feet again. The dagger flashes in the scant moonlight as it strikes out, and Jaskier, still standing over the soldiers discarded sword, has enough wherewithal to kick it back behind him as he backs up. He jumps out of the way, reaching down to scoop the weapon into his hands, and it’s while he’s trying to jiggle it out of the scabbard, still backing up wildly that the second soldier sends a dagger crashing down into Jaskier’s shoulder, only missing his spine by virtue of Jaskier’s own movements._

_The pain is excruciating, and he drops the sword, wheeling around to face this new attacker, yanking the hilt from his attackers grip before he can rip it out again. This is bad. Oh, so very bad, he thinks, one hand reaching for the dagger in his shoulder and yet afraid to touch it, the other held out, an ineffectual attempt to ward off the two soldiers still advancing on him. They’re all three of them breathing hard, but no one’s offered words yet, and Jaskier finally finds his tongue: “Gentlemen, this has been a fantastic excursion, but I think it’s best if we part ways now,” he near whispers it, mouth devoid of moisture and suddenly sure that these men have zero desire to bargain with him. That dagger strike had been meant to kill, or maim, neither the intentions of someone liable to let him go after some pretty words. It’s all the defense he has currently, and the wicked smile taking up the face of the soldier he first encountered tells him how well this current bid is going to go for him._

_“Oh, you do, do you. What’s a bard like you doing out in these woods then, eh?” while the words are nominally addressed to Jaskier, it could not be clearer that he’s talking to his partner. “Looks like we’ve got ourselves some entertainment tonight.”_

He shudders back into himself, blinking away the vision to find that his hands have carried on without his conscious input. There’s no more blood that isn’t his own on his person, but the rhythmic rubbing has left his chest raw and pink. He hisses at the tenderness as he notices it, ignoring the sudden attention from where he can feel Geralt’s eyes staring him down. Now is not the time to shoulder Geralt’s guilt as well. He can stew in it for getting them into this mess in the first place. Three years, it’s been, since the mountain and no meetings in between, although Jaskier went to all the places he’d usually find Geralt that first year, half-hoping and half-dreading their eventual reunion. Three years, and he’d just about given it up as true, that Geralt really did consider his absence a blessing, and here they were, the first contact in all that time was Geralt saving him from being kidnapped by a Nilfgaardian patrol. Happenstance, not because Jaskier was special, not because he mattered, to Nilfgaard or to Geralt: just fate or destiny playing her tricks to make a fool of them both. He’s a spy for the Redanian Intelligence Agency, a bard of continent wide fame, the _godsdamned prodigal son_ of Oxenfurt Academy, and he was almost killed by a scouting patrol on the banks of the fucking Angra river, of all the thrice-damned places. The impotent fury at the utter lunacy of his situation carries him through scrubbing his hair and getting dressed again, though he has to forgo a shirt, seeing as how his was destroyed.

He putters about in his rage, ignoring Geralt as he does whatever ignoble witchers do to get ready for sleeping. He is going to sleep and he will deal with Geralt and all that entails in the morning. No sooner.

* * *

Jaskier wakes up quite suddenly some hours later: the faintest bit of indigo blue light is shining through the shutters so he knows the sun is not yet risen. He rolls his still sleep-heavy body over trying to chase the encroaching light away. There’s a shuffling sound from the other side of the room, and then Geralt’s voice filters into Jaskier’s awareness, lowly muttering. Jaskier scrunches his nose, not yet wanting wakefulness but also desperately curious, and pushes his face further into the crook of his elbow, which frees up both ears to listen slightly better.

“Three days from now.” There’s a beat of silence, perhaps a whisper too faint to hear, then Geralt again, “I can’t travel any faster than that.” And ooh, if that doesn’t smack of being left behind again. His mother had oft warned him against eavesdropping, but then, if he’d listened to his mother he wouldn’t be a bard at all, now would he. Still, the ache in his chest at once more being abandoned by Geralt, (less than a day after being saved by the brute no less!) sits heavy behind his breast and he gives himself away trying to turn his head again so as not to hear anything else which might break his heart anew. “Jaskier.” It should be a question, but Geralt has never been the best at inflection and seemingly the last three years have not changed that one bit.

“Yes, witcher, I am awake, though I would very much rather not be.” He groans in reply, sitting up anyways. If Geralt is to leave him he should be forced to do it properly, with his words and everything.

“Your shoulder.” Once again, a question delivered in that flat cadence, but this time it’s accompanied by the salve from the healer being offered out into the space between them. He takes it slowly, reaching forward with his good arm, and trying to ignore the shocking cold as the thin blanket falls away from his suddenly vertical body and the morning air meets his bare chest. This is an annoying problem to have, he thinks irritably, as he slowly unwinds the bandages from his shoulder and smooths the salve over the tidy line of stitches and the surrounding burn. His shirt, ruined, and doublet also, and no backup to put on instead. This town had better have a trading post, or perhaps it will be market day when he ventures out, though his luck does not usually run so straightforward, especially not given recent events.

The burn covers most of his shoulder blade, and just licks the top of his stitches, and oh but he really shouldn’t have tried to turn like that. The insistent pain stops him from covering the bottom of the burn, and he turns back around to wipe the rest of the salve back into the little container, feeling immeasurably grumpy and upset with this entire situation. “Here,” Geralt says, standing suddenly from the other bed, “let me.” Jaskier has to look up now to meet Geralt’s eyes, and that rankles too, feeling so much below the man and being forced into showing this vulnerability that Geralt doesn’t deserve to see anymore.

It’s been three years, he tells his stupid traitorous heart, which even now is thumping harder as Geralt takes the small container back from his hand, and then puts one knee on the mattress beside Jaskier’s thigh so he can lean over and see his back. “Turn.” and Jaskier does, of course he does, he’s a fool and he’s conflicted and a stupid little piece of his too-soft poet’s heart is still hopeful that Geralt didn’t mean it, that he was just angry and lashing out, three years of separation be damned.

Perhaps, that tiny voice whispers, perhaps there is an explanation, which will put the story to rights, fill in the gaps of the narrative that do not make sense now to Jaskier, but will show that truly, Geralt had _had_ to yell at him that day, that there was no other way, that he lied, or that it was a noble sacrifice, which Jaskier can forgive and not suffer lost dignity for, and the tiny voice is countered, of course, by a slightly louder voice chastising Jaskier for being too fanciful, for placing himself too highly in the narrative’s importance. Hadn’t the three years proved that? Hadn’t the mountain? Hadn’t _any_ of their partings over the years shown just how easy it was to dismiss him? He drops his head into his hands, tensing involuntarily against the coldness of the salve as Geralt smooths it over the burn. His fingers do not touch, and that level of precision, so expected from the witcher, does not hurt any less just because he knew to anticipate it. Gods, but this is very nearly intolerable. He’d been ready to forgive him, even then, waiting for Geralt to take it back, for him to turn around and apologize; and he’d been ready to forgive him two years ago, if only Geralt’s path would cross his again, one year ago, traveling slowly from town to town, chasing whispers of the white wolf in between his bardic circuit. He does not know if his heart can take it again, if Geralt once more decides him too much of a burden to bear traveling with. Injured, now, needing to be saved, he could not have engineered a worse reunion had he written the fates himself. Tears prick, involuntarily at the corner of his eyes, and he refuses to let them fall by sheer force of will, tilting his head back as Geralt pushes off the bed.

He’s interrupted by a bundle of cloth, hitting his chest gently and bouncing off to fall into his lap, where he just manages to snag the black bundle in his hands before it hits the ground. He looks up, startled to see Geralt already turning back to his packs. “It’s an extra. There’s a market in Scala, we can get you replacements then.”

Hope is a dangerous thing, but it’s perched itself in his heart regardless. “We?” he questions, slipping his hands into the shirt’s sleeves, and then, finding it bunched around his elbows and yet unable to lift his injured shoulder enough to put his head in, stopping with his thumbs still hooked in the neck. Geralt turns, and Jaskier catches a split-second of surprise before Geralt sees Jaskier’s predicament and his features fall back into his resting scowl. He stomps over, brusquely, yet gently, manhandling Jaskier into this shirt, much the same way he manhandled him out of yesterday’s bloodied clothes.

“Yes, we,” He says, as the neck slips over Jaskier’s head, “you’re in danger now, just as much as I or Ciri. I’d not leave you to be captured again.”

“So, you went back for her then, your child surprise,” he looks up as the shirt settles over his chest, meeting Geralt’s gaze, which is yet again surprised. “I wasn’t sure you’d ever accept her.” He’d been to more than one Cintran celebration over the years, sneaking in often under Calanthe’s nose either as another noble’s paramour, or, as the feast’s entertainment when he could get away with it. It was harder to sneak in as Jaskier, traveling bard who sang of the White Wolf, but Julian Alfred Pankratz, accompanying the Countess de Staael, had been able to secure his attendance on more than one occasion, and he’d hardly missed a single one until the Dragon Mountains. It had seemed too much like unwarranted penance to keep going after that.

“You know her?” There’s that surprise again, and Jaskier feels genuinely irritated now to see it. How little does Geralt think of him, that he wouldn’t know the royal family of Cintra? Of any kingdom they regularly travel through?

“Yes, I know of her, Geralt, though it’s not entirely accurate to say I know her in any familiar sense. I am quite sure she does not know me, if that’s your concern now.” He says, struggling to get his boots on with limited use of his non-dominant arm. It’s annoying but manageable and there’s a heavy silence except for the sound of his struggles, brief as they are. He stands up, fully dressed and Geralt steps back, and all at once this awkwardness becomes intolerable. “What— “

“I’m—” Their words overlap and they both stop. Jaskier feels the sudden silence that falls between them like it is a physical thing, and he fights down the impulse to fill it, feeling peevishly convinced that Geralt deserves this. He built this mousetrap they are standing on, and he will be responsible for tripping it— Jaskier has already been unforgivably vulnerable around this man and if he is to keep his hard-won peace then he cannot break now.

“I’m sorry. Jaskier.” And oh, it sounds wrenched out of him, but the words themselves are not enough, Jaskier is sure, until he raises his eyes to meet Geralt’s and sees the truth written plain across his face. “You were right. I was unfair to you, and I said some things I should not have. It.... weighs on me,” Geralt says, those golden eyes rooting Jaskier to the spot. He could not leave just then if he wanted to. Jaskier wants, so badly to just forget, to go back to how they were before the mountain, when he was certain of his place at Geralt’s side, and knew how to talk to him. But the beating truth of his heart cannot be overwritten, no matter how desperately he wants to cover it in ink. Jaskier, despite being a poet, has made an entire lifetime out of avoiding uncomfortable conversations, deflecting with a joke or simply absenting himself before it became necessary. This is simultaneously intolerable and intoxicating, and he feels trapped by what he wants and what he fears, strung tight between the potential outcomes of this conversation, long-overdue as it is.

“That’s... well, I mean, right. I just...” There is a stuttering question trapped in his throat now, and he both doesn’t want to ask and finds he must. He can almost feel the djinn’s phantom hand at his throat, and god, what if it had been that long? Truly, could he recover from the truth of this? Can he recover at all, if he must live without knowing?

“How long?” and it’s not enough of a question, hardly makes sense in reply, but it must be asked. He ducks his eyes, needing the scant distance staring at his scuffed boots can give him. “I mean.... gods,” a teardrop splashes against his boot and he curse his own weakness, looking straight up at the ceiling instead, a futile attempt to stop gravity from revealing all his secrets. “When did it start?”

“When did what start?”

“When did you start resenting me as your traveling companion?” he asks, finally looking back at Geralt. Geralt looks poleaxed, though his expression near immediately shutters back into inscrutability.

“Never. Jaskier, I have never resented having you as my traveling companion.” He says, earnestly, and Jaskier wants desperately to believe him, but his words from the mountain still echo in his ears.

“Then _why—”_ his voice breaks, embarrassingly, and he has to swallow and try again, “Why did you say that then, why would it have been a _blessing_ to be rid of me,” he hisses, “why would you say that if you didn’t feel it, it doesn’t make any _sense_ , Geralt.” Damn him, he’s crying fully now. He won’t move to wipe his face, defiantly stupid, but let Geralt see, let him see what he’s done, what his words have wrought.

“I never— “

“If life could give me one blessing.” Jaskier interrupts, flatly delivering the line which has plagued him since hearing it. A blessing indeed, to no longer travel with him. Maybe Jaskier really is cursed, or is a curse himself.

“I was angry, Jaskier, and I...” he trails off, jerking his head sideways to glare at the tub, still full of yesterday’s bathwater. His jaw tenses, before he suddenly whips his head around to meet Jaskier’s eyes again. “I do not deserve your forgiveness, but I cannot see you hurt. I am taking Ciri to Kaer Morhen, to train her and keep her safe. Come with me.”

“What? Come with you to the witcher’s keep?” he asks, feeling suddenly wrong-footed, as if he’d stepped off a staircase and found no ground to rest his weight on. This conversation had not gone at all how he envisioned it. He’s not actually sure what he had expected, but to be invited to Geralt’s home had not been even remotely in the realm of his imaginings.

“Yes. Please.” Geralt steps closer, bridging the gap between them with his hands half-raised in supplication.

“Wha- Geralt, what—” he’s cut off again, Geralt stepping close enough to put his hands over Jaskier’s, stilling them from rubbing together, an anxious tick he’d not been aware of.

“I need you to be safe. If you were hurt while I was not there to stop it—it would be intolerable.”

‘Wait, wait just back up please, I don’t understand.” Jaskier says, taking his hands back and moving away, stalking towards the door of this room to get rid of the trapped feeling crawling over his skin. “You sent me away, Geralt, _you_ did that. I would have kept traveling with you and we could have gone on like we always had, but you said—” he chokes on the lump in his throat, the ache in his chest, and tries again, “you blamed me for every misfortune in your life, and that is not a thought which comes from the ether, Geralt, that was not a strike of lightning, to land once and be done with, that must have come from _somewhere_ , or _something_ , and I—“ he stops himself there, aware, once again, that he had been about to reveal too much. _I love you,_ he thinks, _and you resented every moment I spent with you._ How can he make sense of this? “Just tell me, please, and do not lie to me. I’ll know and I will never forgive you if you lie to me now.” He says, finally meeting Geralt’s gaze again.

‘Tell you what.” Geralt says, once again without inflection, holding himself so stilly that he may well be made of marble.

“Did you mean it, Geralt, was I truly so burdensome to you, did I spend twenty years of my life a nuisance to you and you only tolerated me because I... what because I wrote songs for you?” He hadn’t even thought of that before, but oh god, how _embarrassing_ if true, that Jaskier had thought them friends and Geralt had only over seen it as a transaction—business, necessary to change his reputation and no more. “Had you been so cruel? To let me think—” He’s cut off by a wordless moan, a sound of animal pain and he’s pulled out of his own spiraling panic enough to identify it as belonging to Geralt.

“No.” Geralt pleads, “no, it was never that, Jaskier. I am not—” he cuts himself off, looking away again, jaw clenched so tightly Jaskier can almost imagine he hears his teeth grinding. “I have not been half what you deserve, Jaskier. You were so—” he stops again, eyes closed, before he purposefully relaxes his shoulders. He breathes deeply, opening his eyes to meet Jaskier’s gaze, steady and grounded, the way Jaskier remembers Geralt. “You were not afraid. You have never been afraid of me and that—” he looks away quickly, a barely gone flicker before his gaze is back, pinning Jaskier with his heart beating against the back of his tongue, “that confused me. At first, and then it was just, a pattern to follow and I didn’t realize that you didn’t know how much I cared until it was too late.”

And oh gods, but hadn’t his mother warned him against hope too. He’s a poet and it’s in his nature to read too much into things; he’s no stranger to the fluttering of feathered things as they beat against his ribcage and he’s evicted many a carcass of crushed hope from his chest before this— he may well have need to do it again in the future. Were he a more devout man he might well send a quick prayer to Melitle _, please let me get what I want this time._ “How much you care?” Jaskier repeats, holding his breath against the weight of his anticipation.

“I... need you. Jaskier, I need you alive and I know I have forfeited my rights to ask anything of you—” Jaskier cuts him off this time, in no mood for more of Geralt’s self-pity.

“Stop Geralt, stop, of course you can ask, how are we to help each other if you cannot ask even that much of me. I—” he pauses, suddenly unsure, “I want to travel with you again, if you would have me.”

Geralt doesn’t do anything so pedestrian as sag in relief but the tension sweeps out of the room so quickly Jaskier feels as if his own strings have been cut. “Please.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the first time I've written a fic in....five years? I wrote it originally because I wanted to try my hand at stabbing Jaskier (yes that was my entire motivation at the start of this what of it) but after about two thousand words I realized this was way more about the mortifying ordeal of not actually being known. so. I wrote it also in like, a week, mostly as a method of procrastinating writing progress reports for my students too which was a unique experience. Usually my procrastinating is of the highly unproductive variety, but here there be fic! I hope you liked reading this as much I liked writing it! Comments and Kudos feed the author? Chapter Two is half way written and being edited, so maybe another week or two before its up?


	2. The Mortifying Ordeal of Being Unknown

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much to everyone who commented, subscribed, bookmarked, or left kudos! It honestly means the world to me and it's why I worked so hard to actually finish this! I haven't written anything this long before, and certainly nothing that got an ending I'm actually pleased with, but I quite like the note this ended on! Enjoy!

By the time they have Roach saddled and their bags packed, the sun is just rising and it’s promising to be a beautiful day, though the winds that run through the valley mean it won’t get much warmer than the current damp chill in the air. Jaskier breathes deeply staring at the distant mountains and appreciating the great vista they present, clouds of fog gently lifting from them. They’re leeched of color by the distance between them, a stony blue standing guard over the valley, and Jaskier thinks for a moment that it’s a shame he’s not a painter. Over the course of his travels he’s been exposed to more beauty than he could ever have dreamed of, and it does the soul good to take notice and just bask in the simple joys every now and again. Geralt is settling their debts with the inn owner currently, and Jaskier is leaning against the wall next to where Roach is hitched, waiting for them to be on their way. He’s half lost in his thoughts, which are swirling between staying in the moment to glory in the mountains majesty and worrying about the impending journey with Geralt, so he doesn’t notice the healer until she’s already upon him.

“Bard! How’s the shoulder, then?” she asks, startling Jaskier from his reverie.

“Oh!” He says, jerking upright to stand without aid of the wall. He finds the woman from yesterday standing primly in front of him holding an empty basket and smiling warmly. “Yes! It’s quite a lot better now, thanks to you and your wonderful ministrations.” He offers her a wan smile of his own, still feeling wrung out from the emotional toll of his earlier conversation with Geralt, but ever conscious of his image.

“That’s good to hear, master bard. Any chance I might get that tale then? Or have you not the time to tell it, sir?” and _oh_ , but she is a crafty one. She’s beaming beatifically, proud to have tracked down her bit of gossip. This is a craft Jaskier can appreciate and she has him cornered so elegantly. He cannot back out now, at risk of being rude to a woman who has already done him a kind service, and, truthfully, he did imply that he might tell it if she tracked him down for it. _Bollocks_.

“If I were a lesser bard I might not, but you are in luck! I am, indeed, a master of my trade, and as such it would be my pleasure to indulge your curiosity,” he says, crossing his uninjured arm across his chest and inclining his head slightly. “To tell it faithfully we really must begin in the hallowed halls of Oxenfurt where I had been lecturing this past winter. I received the most interesting news, notice of an exclusive invitation to play a series of festivals with the most venerated of my guild, an attempt to, of course, crown a victor at the end of the season. It may interest you to know that you are looking at that very victor himself, though I....” he trails off, sensing the healer is no longer listening and follows her gaze to where it’s stuck rather unerringly on Geralt, scowling at the both of them as he approaches. “Ah, yes, there he is, the hero returns, cantankerous as ever it seems,” he says, smiling at the healer though, in truth, she seems to have forgotten about him entirely. “Geralt! I was just telling this lovely woman about our adventure, would you care to offer her your version of the dashing rescue?”

In truth, he’s rather hoping Geralt and his scowl are enough to scare the woman off, uncomfortable as he is with giving too many details away. They didn’t leave any survivors to report back to Nilfgaard’s army, but that in and of itself will become a problem in due time.

“We need to go.” Geralt grunts, already maneuvering around Jaskier to check Roach’s tack and saddle. He doesn’t acknowledge the healer beyond a single sideways glance, mild enough by Geralt’s standards but, combined with the scowl still etched across his face and the absolutely overwhelming aura of _fuck off_ that he’s radiating, it’s clearly enough to make her visibly uncomfortable. _Thank the god_ s; perhaps Geralt’s boorishness will work in his favor this time.

“That’s alright,” she says, clearly nervous and unsettled. Her composure from last night, held together by her focus on his injury, seems to have fled in the lack of anything to sustain it, and all the better, honestly. “You’re clearly busy, I wouldn’t want to be in the way. Perhaps next time you pass through?” she delivers her final lines already backing away, still shooting nervous little looks at Geralt over Jaskier’s shoulder.

She turns and flees as Jaskier gaily calls out after her, “Good day, madam! Next time, then!” He spins around to face Geralt, feeling oddly buoyed by just how well that worked out for him. “Your complete lack of tact has for once, actually worked in my favor, will wonders never cease.” He smiles winningly at Geralt, who, for some reason is still scowling. “Trouble with the innkeeper? Or has your face frozen like this finally?” he asks, picking up his lute from where it was resting against the wall and slinging it across his back. He has to switch which shoulder it usually rests across, in deference to his still healing stab wound, and he nearly misses Geralt’s response because of his fumbling. “Sorry, chum, what was that?” he asks, lute finally settled as he looks once again at Geralt.

“We need to keep moving north. I left Ciri in Scala, it should take us three days to get there.” Geralt offers, picking up Roach’s reins and beginning the walk out town. Jaskier walks alongside him, pleased to be moving again.

“Tell me you didn’t leave that little girl all alone in a strange new town, Geralt.”

“No, she’s with Triss.”

“And who, pray tell, is Triss?” Jaskier asks, stepping up his pace slightly to pull ahead of Geralt. The reminder that there are parts of Geralt’s life he hasn’t been privy to settles like a stone in his chest and he dearly hopes this isn’t yet another sorceress Jaskier will pay second fiddle to in Geralt’s affections.

“A sorceress I met in Temeria.” _Fuck_. “You remember, the striga? You wrote that godawful ballad about it.” Geralt offers, smirking ever so slightly. Jaskier, well-versed in the many micro-expressions that constitute Geralt’s non-verbal vocabulary is strangely heartened to see it. Geralt has been brooding since they reunited and seeing the return of their playful bantering, knowing now, that it truly is playful, fills him with a cautious hope that they may yet recover their friendship. Hoping for anything more than friendship is a foolishness that even Jaskier can’t hope to aspire to, especially if this sorceress is anything at all like Yennefer. Given that what little Jaskier knows of sorceresses can be distilled into two points: _beautiful_ and _bitchy_ , he hasn’t got much hope of her being any different.

“As I recall, that _godawful ballad_ won me the favor of Foltest’s court, and incidentally, led to my very first teaching appointment at Oxenfurt, so I’d soon as not take your opinion on the ballad to heart, thank you very much.” He sniffs theatrically, beginning to hum the chorus of that very same ballad, mostly to needle Geralt.

“Hmm.” Geralt turns them slightly as they pass the last row of buildings in town, leading them off the main road and through the forest. Jaskier takes care to step lighter, watching for stray roots and branches. “I found Ciri just outside of Sodden Hill. She asked me about Yennefer, and when we went looking we found Triss instead.”

“What happened in Sodden? I hadn’t heard anything, but the troupe I left Toussaint with was headed up that way.” Jaskier says, ducking under a tree branch and hopping forward so as to be once more beside Geralt.

“It burned to the ground. By the time we got there, Triss and a few others were organizing with the Northern Armies, fighting to keep Nilfgaard from advancing either this way or into Temeria. Triss found Ciri and I looking for Yennefer and told us she’d gone missing.”

“Missing!” Jaskier interrupted, feeling suddenly wrong-footed. Yennefer of Vengerburg, though she had caused Jaskier more than her fair share of grief over the years (mostly due to Geralt) was still an incredibly powerful sorceress. The idea that she was missing was deeply unsettling. “Hadn’t this Triss been keeping track of her?”

“Triss said Yennefer saved them. Took down the whole battle field, gave them time for Foltest’s army to arrive. She’s joined us to look for Yennefer, but we needed to get Ciri to safety first. Nilfgaard wants her.”

“When did all this happen? The people I was traveling with... could they have made it through before? Or did they...” he trails off, suddenly picturing the gaunt faces of the villagers he’d passed as they first began their mad dash out of Toussaint some ten days ago now. Marcian and Priscilla spring to mind as well, and he hops, for their sake, that they either made it past before the attack on Sodden Hill or that they at least were spared their lives as they fled the continued violence.

“It was three days before I found you, and we arrived the morning after Yennefer disappeared. All told no more than five days since Sodden Hill became a battlefield.” Geralt says, then pulls Roach to a stop in a small clearing. _Oh, good then_ , Jaskier thinks, _they probably made it._ As relieved as he is about that, he is now even more worried about Essi Daven.

“Well that’s a relief. We fled Toussaint near a fortnight ago, they might have gotten through in time.” Jaskier says, fervently hoping it to be true. Though there’d been no true war in his experience of the world before Nilfgaard began their northward expansion, he’d seen more than enough violence wrought to not wish it upon the innocent.

“Toussaint?” Geralt asks, doing something with Roach’s stirrups.

“I’d just won their annual contest actually, full sweep across the tri-kingdom festival if you must know. Not that that much matters now.” He says, feeling strangely exposed stopped in the forest as they are. There are trees on all sides of their small clearing, and they’re far enough from the main path that Jaskier can only hear the birdsong and the croaking of frogs and other scurrying woodland creatures. It should be peaceful but some left-over unease is flooding a shaky adrenaline through Jaskier’s legs. He wants to be moving. Geralt has moved on to checking Roach’s saddlebags, and Jaskier fidgets nervously, rubbing the fingers of his right hand together as he keeps an eye roving along the edges of their clearing. The energy boils over, and even conscious as he is of how little Geralt truly tolerates his babbling the need to interrupt the silence around him is too great to ignore. If he’s talking, he’s not anxiously worrying about whether a threat is circling them or not.

“Might we head towards Lyria proper once we’ve caught up to your Child Surprise? I’ve a friend I was intending to check up on before I ran into you, as it were, and with the army on the move I’d be much obliged if we could stop in to warn her or perhaps I could escort her to Oxenfurt,” he says, turning to look at Geralt again. “I’d feel much better if I were assured of her safety through this madness.”

Geralt has ceased his fiddling, holding perfectly still against Roach’s side now, staring unerringly at Jaskier. “Her?” he questions, quirking one eyebrow at Jaskier.  
“Have you met Little Eye?” Jaskier asks, thinking back on the years they’d traveled together. They’d been to nearly every corner of the continent over the years, though Jaskier supposed most of that time had been him following Geralt, and, now that he really thinks about it, it has become stunningly apparent that none of those trips had taken them through Oxenfurt, and certainly they’d never been through Kerack together. Had Geralt met _any_ of his compatriots? “I don’t suppose you have,” he answers himself, wondering if this was further proof that something had been deeply wrong with their relationship for much longer than what the last three years of introspection had made him think. “She’s been like a little sister to me, I helped her make a name for herself on the bardic circuit,” he says, ignoring his own maudlin thoughts. It does no good to dawdle, not when Geralt is actually in front of him, for once listening patiently to him as he rambles. “You know! She actually beat me a few years back, spent the whole summer gloating every time we crossed paths.” He smiles fondly, which turns to mild bemusement as Geralt steps closer. “Geralt?”

“Give me your lute.” Geralt says, already reaching for the strap. Jaskier lets it happen, surprised. Geralt attaches it to Roach’s saddle, and the reason for all the fiddling becomes suddenly apparent. Geralt turns back around, satisfied the instrument is secure and then, slightly hesitant says, “We would travel faster if you rode. Do you need.... help?”

Warm pleasure flushes through Jaskier’s chest, both at being asked and the simple acknowledgement of his agency in this situation, finally.

“I must admit, I’ve never mounted a horse one-handed before, and surely never a steed so magnificent as Roach herself.” Geralt grunts, sounding weirdly... pleased? Maybe— it has admittedly been quite a while since he’d needed to translate from Witcher to Bard.

It takes a little bit of maneuvering, but in very little time Jaskier is astride Roach, and Geralt is leading them further through the forest. Truthfully, Jaskier is pleased to be moving again. Staying still felt rather like tempting destiny, an occupation Jaskier has no use for after watching the way it had rather spectacularly dogged Geralt’s every step for so many years. His own recent brush with death weighed on him, though he tried to put it out of his mind. The fear lingers though, and he finds himself hyper-aware of every sound the forest makes as they travel. Since he no longer needs to watch where he puts his feet, his attention instead turns to introspection, a dangerous occupation for a poet at any time, but especially so for Jaskier, given the past several days events. Gods, but what a whirlwind it’s been. He places one hand gingerly against his shoulder, remembering the overwhelming pain of being stabbed, and then, abruptly, the pain of the knife being ripped back out.

_They’ve got him backed into a tree trunk, and as they slowly approach Jaskier is all-too aware that they have the advantage here. He’s no slouch when it comes to defending himself if armed, but he’s never wielded a sword through an injury like this, nevermind that he’s without a sword at all. Bare-handed, injured, he’s disadvantaged enough that he knows he won’t win if they try to attack him outright. His best chance of getting out of this is to talk them down, distract them enough that he can separate them. He’s fast, and better equipped to run through the woods than either of these two in their bulky armors. The sun is setting, and if he can just keep them off of him until it sets, he can disappear into the woods and stay out of sight until they tire of tracking fleeing prey. This was an attack of opportunity, and he doubts either of these two brutes have any idea who he is._

_“I’m honored, gentlemen, truly, but you have no business with me, nor I with you, and I’m sure we’d all be better off if we just agreed to part ways here.” The larger of the two men advancing on him sneers, picking up his sword from where Jaskier had dropped it when he got stabbed by the smaller soldier._

_“Jakob,” he says, unsheathing his weapon, “this bard think we’re just going to let him walk away without explaining what he’s doing out here all alone, skulking around our camp. I think I smell a spy, Jakob. What say you?”_ Well, shit _. Jaskier thinks,_ not so stupid after all _._

_Jakob, clearly the junior of the two, spits on the ground. Jaskier would roll his eyes if he were not still trying to charm his way out of this._

_“I think he’s got my dagger.” Alright, so maybe one of them is stupid. Jaskier can work with that. They’re still advancing, and Jaskier knows he has to time this perfectly. The dagger, which is stuck in the meat of his shoulder blade is not something he can take out himself, so it’s hardly a weapon. It’s still the best bet he’s got._

_“I’d gladly give it back, if you’d be so kind as to remove it. I promise you I am no spy, merely a traveling bard separated from my troupe and happened upon a spectacular run of very bad luck, so if you’d please, once you take your dagger I’ll be on my way and we can part pleasantly, without further violence.” Jaskier says, letting his voice trip unevenly over the words: the less capable they think him the better. The leader of the two guffaws, an ugly, uneven sound and stops advancing to lean on his blade, (it’s poor swordsmanship, even Jaskier knows this, but it fills Jaskier with a fragile hope that he may yet get out of this with his skin intact- well, mostly intact, current stabbing notwithstanding.)_

_“Jakob,” he says, “the bard would like you to take your dagger back after all. See to it he’s relieved of the burden.” There’s a nasty smile hovering on his lips, obviously pleased to imagine the pain about to befall Jaskier. Sadists are the worst, but they’re also predictable. Jakob approaches, his own sword still sheathed. Rookie mistake. Jakob reaches forward over Jaskier’s shoulder to grab the dagger and with his other hand spins Jaskier around and shoves him into the tree. Jaskier keeps the spin going, and just as he clears the tree, pushes forward into a desperate lunge that sends him crashing to the earth. The dagger squelches wetly out his shoulder but Jakob’s grip weakens in surprise and Jaskier hears it hit the ground behind him—quick as a flash he turns and is upon it. Jakob is backing wildly up, pulling ineffectually at his sword, which in some stroke of divine intervention is caught on its scabbard, and Jaskier has hold of him, the dagger tip pressing harshly into his neck before the other soldier has even lifted his sword in preparation to fight._

_“I did ask that we end this peacefully, gentlemen.” Jaskier says, holding Jakob hostage and meeting the other soldier’s eyes over his buddy’s shoulder. “Jakob,” he says, “tell your friend to drop his weapon and then back up ten paces, if you so please.” There’s a tense moment of silence, both of the soldiers clearly surprised at the turn their night has taken. There is blood absolutely gushing down Jaskier’s back—distantly he is worried about losing mobility in his arm, losing consciousness from the blood-loss, but his immediate concern lies in convincing these men to let him go, or finding them unswayable, killing them. Jakob says nothing. “Quickly now, there’s no time to waste,” he says, shaking the man roughly. The knife’s edge slides against his skin, releasing a trickle of blood, invisible in the low light to his compatriot but clearly felt by Jakob and Jaskier both as it slips wetly against his hand where he’s holding the dagger._

_“Piotr please, dr-drop your weapon and back up, back up, just do it!” Jakob finally yells, and gratifyingly Piotr complies. Jaskier steps forward, shoving Jakob in front of him, For every step backwards Piotr takes, Jakob and Jaskier take one forward until finally Jaskier is standing over the dropped sword. Piotr has his hands up, but he doesn’t look concerned. Something about the confidence in his eyes pings and Jaskier feels the hairs on the back of his neck rising. Something whooshes loudly behind him and he ducks on instinct, turning to face this new threat, but not fast enough. A heavy blow catches his shoulder as he turns, and it would have caught his head if not for how quickly he moved. He stumbles under the force of it, falling into Jakob. He feels the dagger slice through Jakob’s neck, and he dies quickly with a startled gurgle that’s nearly drowned out by Jaskier’s pained scream as he registers the burning heat taking over his shoulder. He wheels back to standing, hunched over against the scorching pain, facing his new assailant. It’s another soldier, holding a torch which must have been what he tried to bash over Jaskier’s head. It’s still lit, surprisingly, and its flickering light, plus the blinding pain of being stabbed then burned, is making it suddenly difficult for Jaskier to see. Or maybe that’s the blood loss. Either way consciousness is becoming insanely more difficult to hold onto._

_“How many of you are there in these woods, exactly?” he asks, not expecting an answer. He’s fucking tired all of a sudden, and he’d really rather just lie down right about now._

_“Like we’d tell anything to a spy, even dead as you’re about to be, maggot.” And Oh, there’s Piotr, who accompanies his words by yanking a fistful of Jaskier’s hair to pull his head back, and, predictably, placing his recovered dagger against his throat._

_“Ahh,” Jaskier huffs out, breathing hard through the pain and the exhaustion, “I’d quite forgotten you existed, you bastard.”_

_“You won’t soon forget what I’m going to do to you, shitling.” Piotr hisses in his ear, sending his rancid hot breath ghosting across Jaskier’s cheek. He’d gag if he had the energy but as it is, he’s mostly busy watching the third soldier. He gurgles wetly, an unusual sound, and both Jaskier and Piotr are stunned to see a sword suddenly protruding from his middle. The soldier seems stunned too, for the all-too-brief seconds it takes before the sword is yanked back out of him. He falls, and there’s no sign of the swordsman behind him. Just the dark forest._

_“How did you do that?” Piotr asks, near hysterically. Jaskier would laugh at the notion that he’d been the arbiter of that soldier’s justice, but there’s the pressing matter of the knife still at his throat._

_“I think,” Jaskier says, still panting slightly but feeling as if perhaps his luck is turning, “the better question is how are you going to stop me from doing it to you?”_

_If Piotr were going to answer, anything he might have said is cut off by the sickly thunk of a throwing knife lodging itself between his eyes. He slithers bonelessly to the ground, and Jaskier stumbles forward away from him. And then, as if to prove to Jaskier that the gods are laughing at him in particular, who should walk out of the forest but Geralt._

He’s startled from his memories by the Geralt of today, asking him a question.

“Sorry, what’s that?”

“I asked you if you knew where in Lyria your Little Eye might be.”

“Last I heard she’d taken up residence in the Lyrian palace, got herself a position as the court’s troubadour for Queen Maeve herself.” Geralt makes a small noise of assent in reply, but seems disinclined to go on. Lyria and Rivia both belonged to Queen Maeve, and Jaskier wonders briefly if Geralt feels any particular way about skirting so close to the land he hails from. “Geralt....will it...bother you? To be so close to Rivia?”

“I don’t see why it should matter either way,” Geralt answers, still leading Roach briskly forward.

“It matters not to Geralt of Rivia that we are approaching the land of his birth?”

“Well, it’s not actually the land of my birth. I don’t know where I was born.”

“That’s.... tragic, Geralt, are you serious?”

“Kaer Morhen is the only home I claim, and it’s the only one I need.” Geralt says, guiding Roach across a small stream. Jaskier listens to the water rush by quietly until they light upon a path to follow, finally on an ancient backroad that gives them the chance to move at a slightly faster place.

Finding the silence to be stifling, he can’t help but probe a little further: “If you truly aren’t from Rivia, then why claim it in your name? Why not, Geralt of Kaer Morhen?” He’s not really expecting an answer. Already this is more than Geralt has revealed to him without provocation over the entire course of their friendship. Had he.... gods but he ever actually _known_ Geralt, or been known in turn? Had they just spent two decades walking blindly down the same paths, no more tied together than any two other travelers, also on these roads? Is everything Jaskier knows about Geralt the result only of being tossed a scrap to stop him bothering the diner with his meal?

No, _no_ , Geralt had admitted just this morning that he’d cared more than that, admitted that he did value Jaskier, that they had a real friendship, going both ways. It’s no good to endlessly rewrite their history to try and fit the narrative in Jaskier’s head: He was wrong, and had been wrong, and trying to turn it into some epic story was only doing them both a disservice. It had been good, and it had been bad, but there had been more love than hate, and more warmth than coldness and it would do well to remember that, instead of digging through every memory to try and rework it, fruitlessly looking for things which he has no hope of exhuming, certainly not with the distance between then and now. He can’t rewrite the past they share, but the language they both speak still exists. They can learn to speak it again.

Geralt makes another quiet humming noise, thoughtful this time, and Jaskier waits patiently for the answer.

“When we were in training, Vesemir made us choose a surname, so that The Path might be easier for us to walk. Geralt of Rivia is more trustworthy than Geralt of Nowhere,” he offers, finally. That makes a certain amount of sense to Jaskier, versed as he is in the art of rebranding yourself for a greater purpose. Julien Alfred Pankratz, Viscount de Lettenhove is a terrible name for a bard, and Jaskier is a name not good for anything but being one.

“How did you settle on claiming Rivia? And wait, if you’re truly not from there, how is your accent Rivian?” Hold on, Jaskier thinks, suddenly struck with a wonderful thought, “Did you _practice!?_ ” He laughs, delighted by the idea of a younger Geralt practicing a Rivian accent quite seriously.

“I did. I wanted it to be more authentic,” Geralt says, smiling at Jaskier. Jaskier feels so warmed to see it, he isn’t expecting Geralt to offer even more. “Vesemir made me change it. Originally, I wanted to be named Geralt Roger Eric du Haute-Bellegarde. But that was.... quite pretentious.” Geralt finishes, looking up at Jaskier wryly.

“As delightful as that name is, and truly, I am glad you told me, I’m immeasurably gladder that Vesemir talked his sense into you. Geralt of Rivia scans so much better for songs. Can you imagine trying to work that into ‘Toss a Coin to Your Witcher?’”

Geralt laughs, truly laughs, and the last vestiges of Jaskier’s unease over their reunion falls aside. Whatever challenges ahead they have this, the shared language that lets them laugh and offer bits of themselves up to be seen, willingly, and to be known however small the knowledge.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am so sorry this took so much longer than I said! The end of the school year absolutely kicked my ass and between progress reports, final grades, end of year professional development and useless zoom meetings I got so burned out I didn't actually get a chance to look at this document until the tenth. And then I needed to finish an application for other teaching jobs before I would let myself finish this. Job searching is the worst, but it's necessary. 
> 
> I could theoretically see myself adding a continuation of sorts, tracking down Essi and finding Ciri and Triss and Yennefer and all that, but this part of the story felt right to end here. I hope you feel the same! <3
> 
> ETA: 12/14/2020  
> update: ahh yeah i’m not going to add a continuation on to this, mainly because i feel like i told the story i wanted to tell re: heading to Kaer Morhen in elided, and i dont feel the need to revisit that. thank you for reading however and i’m glad you enjoyed this!


End file.
